This week's play blog is a cautionary tale about using play to practice avoidance.
As I have mentioned before, this semester has become a personal journey in trying to figure out what it means to be a healthy academic, how to be the scholar I am becoming, and not lose the other parts of myself that are at the core of who I am. In this exploration, I have been contemplating routine, my deepest values, balance, discipline, boundaries, rest, work, and yes, play. This week was about all these things, but also about how I deal with stress, and having to tackle difficult, non-preferred tasks.
Originally, I looked forward to taking time this weekend to center my play around my love of geography and traveling. I had a lot of presentation proposals to work on, so I thought my play could either be a needed break from this work, or a reward for finishing a couple. Instead, I found myself on the internet Saturday night, reading about different movies that had been mentioned in a textbook I had to read for another class. One movie synopsis led to another, and another, and I spent a long time learning about interesting movies from the cinematic past that exemplify different aspects of storytelling. Why did I do this? Well, first of all, I love learning about all manner of things. I can start on one webpage to learn about a particular thing, and end up all over the place, immersing myself in all sorts of different subjects. Secondly, it added some additional background knowledge about the films that were being referred to in my text, and about which I had become curious. But thirdly....thirdly, if I am honest, what became a momentary break from work became a chance to avoid working on something that I perceived as challenging, by doing something fun and interesting to me.
On the one hand, I enjoy writing. On the other hand, I don't like writing. It's the tension that I understand most people for whom writing is part of their work, feel. Sometimes writing is absolutely excruciating, and stressful, and I feel like my brain is about to spontaneously combust. Sometimes, if I can just get started, it's not so bad. But getting started when I think it's going to be difficult, is really hard. And sometimes, it's only a looming deadline that gets me in gear. Even then, I might wait until the last moment. Like when I got two presentation proposals done this weekend, and read a graphic novel tonight instead of working on the last and hardest one. Sigh.
What this avoidance did for my play is allowed me to engage in some fun things (reading for knowledge and pleasure), but always with a little guilt in the background. And, it meant that I never got to the thing I really wanted to do (my geographic play) because I had frittered away the time I had to do that. It also meant that there were no boundaries between time to relax and enjoy, and getting work done. And this is a pattern that I am noticing about myself. I am not good at setting up boundaries. I love that my colleague Kate has a particular time that she has bounded as work time, then gives herself other time that is for her to do the other things that have meaning for her. Since I make no bounded times, I end up working all over the place. I never have time set aside to do other things, so they never get done, and I never really give myself permission to rest and not think about work.
In my quest to seek balance and healthiness in my life, I have begun asking academics I know how they balance work and other aspects of their lives. And I have gotten some good advice. One of the most important pieces that just struck me today is that of boundaries, that I need to block off times for things I find important, and give myself permission to not think about work, and to just enjoy that sabbatical time. Part of this though, is also to work hard and steadily during work time, and not avoid things that may be difficult for me. Yes, there are times I find work in my play, and play in my work, but there are times when work just feels like work, and I have to soldier through it, and push beyond the anxiety and stress it may cause, or my reluctance to do something so difficult. If I don't make good boundaries here, they will not hold elsewhere, and I will be back to never feeling like I have real times of rest and breaks.
I've learned something this week from using play as avoidance, something that is part of the process I am going through this semester to develop good habits of mind, heart, body and spirit. I am not going to regret my play for this week- it was fun and interesting- but I am going to try to do things differently next week. And this flows into another thing I am learning: perfection is not the standard. For me, it's just doing the best I can, learning and growing to be a better, healthier person. So while I may have blown my boundaries this time (if I can even say I have any), I'm gonna pick them up and try again next week. Then, maybe I'll get to really play, without guilt, safe within positive boundaries.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
A Moroccan Culinary Adventure
One of the really good things about this class is that it is
pushing me to consider how I am navigating grad school. An important part of this semester is
centering around my personal exploration of how to live a healthy life as a
grad student (and future academic), learning to balance all the things that are
important to my mental, intellectual, spiritual, physical, and emotional
health. Part of this is learning to establish routines that allow space for
concentrated times of scholarly work, times for relational and spiritual
pursuits, times of rest, and times of joyous playful activity. These categories
are by no means exclusive of one another. Like one crazy big Venn diagram,
there are things that they have in common, and things that are particular to
each. What I am learning is how to negotiate space and time for each, how to
embrace the intersections between them, and even how to recognize those intersections. I can’t remember who in our class
said it, but one person said something about not necessarily needing to play
more, but needing to recognize moments of play in her life, and embrace them. What
I am realizing is that I also need to resist creating dichotomies between work,
other obligations, and what I choose to define as play. I too, need to recognize and enjoy moments of
play that are found in work and other responsibilities, and through cooking
this week, that’s exactly what I did.
So Monday, I decided to step back from the speedy stovetop
and indulge in more serious culinary pursuits by making a tagine (rather like a rich, thick stew) from Moroccan food culture.
A friend of mine had gifted me with the conical shaped cookware from Morocco
(also called a tagine), and I have
wanted to make her something in it ever since. The thing is, Moroccan food is a
complexly spiced cuisine, where it is not uncommon to have 5-10 flavor
combinations going on. One spice mix, ras-al-hanout,
can have a dozen or more different herbs and spices in it. All that to say, it
takes some preparation for the average Western cook like me to make; you
generally don’t just have some of those spices in your cupboard. I had already
made preserved lemons in advance, and had been collecting the various spices in
anticipation of this day, so I only had a couple of ingredients to round up-thank
goodness for Sahara Mart! Equipped with the 15+ ingredients, I cut and chopped
and mixed and sautéed and simmered until a rich, deeply flavored chicken tagine was ready to be served, along with
couscous, and roasted asparagus, a dish I had never made before. The result,
thankfully, was a tasty North African inspired meal, accompanied by good
conversation and enjoyment of both food and each other’s company.
I see foods and
cooking as windows into culture, whether that is the narrower definition of a
family’s culture, or the wider definitions of a people group, historical time
and place, or nation. I totally geek out on how food and all the things associated with its
growth, preparation, and eating can give us a deeper understanding of cultures
and history, as well as complex social issues such as nationalism,
environmental degradation, and transnational power structures. At home, I have
over 100 cookbooks, many of which are focused on historical time periods, and
many more focused on the food culture of specific people groups or regions. I
love to just sit and read them. I have learned so much about different places
and time periods simply through reading well written cookbooks. In fact, I read them a lot more than I ever
cook out of them! Nevertheless, I enjoy cooking, but I do so quite rarely these
days. I distinguish cooking from the utilitarian action of throwing something
in the microwave or on the stove top to make quickly and simply just to nourish
my body. Cooking is so much more- an art, an alchemy where the cook uses his or
her creativity, skill and tools to bring disparate ingredients together to make
something new that is greater than simply its parts. It’s a chance to connect
with one’s own cultural history, or learn another’s, to appreciate the people
who have grown or produced the ingredients, and to use one’s aesthetic sense to
produce and present a meal that is pleasing to multiple senses. Also, cooking
food for others can be an expression of care and regard for them. You can enjoy
creating a meal that gives another person great pleasure or comfort, or makes
them feel valued because you took the time to make them something special,
particularly when they know you don’t have much time to spare.
 |
| Chicken tagine with preserved lemon and olives |
So, where would this activity go on my crazy big Venn
diagram? I enjoyed gathering the ingredients, putting them together and seeing
them become something new. I enjoyed taking the time to make a “real” meal,
with “real” food, and serving it on “real” dishes. I loved connecting with
another culture through their foodways. I loved making food for my friend. Yet
there was the utilitarian side of this event, and there was also the cleaning up.
In the end, for me, this time cooking was neither defined by work nor play.
While it retained its primary purpose to nourish the body, it also transcended
it. And in this messy intersection of
pleasurable creativity and utilitarianism, my “playtime” once again pushed
against the idea of play and work being wholly separate, and for me, defining
something as one or the other. This week, I was able to see play in my work,
and work in my play, which is totally ok, and may somehow open up space to
enjoy both work and play more. I think I need to stop bounding activities so strictly
with the ideas of work ethic mentioned in the discussion on the rhetorics of
Frivolity. If I can see some of my work as play, better for me….and maybe
better for finding pleasure in other tasks throughout my day. Maybe I’ll even
cook more. The only thing is… who’s going to do the dishes?
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Imagining Possibilities on a Detour through Fate
Most of us hate detours- the inconvenience, having our perfect plans thwarted, losing complete control of how we get where we are going, and the uncertainty of where that detour takes us. But sometimes, detours aren't bad- sometimes they can take you to places you hadn't planned to go, but which are interesting and where you can learn something new. Sometimes, detours are good. And so it was with this week's play detour. See, I had planned to go sledding on Friday, but by Wednesday, I had a sneaking suspicion it wasn't going to happen. Sure enough, by the week's end, there was little sign that there had ever been snow. Talk about wacky weather! Anyway, Friday night, I was too tired to do anything much, and decided to read a magazine that a friend had lent me. Now I am a person who has a hard time putting down books that I am really into, so the beauty of a magazine is that I can just read one article, or even the whole thing, and it takes a lot less time than a book.
When I read, even in the case of a lot of non-fiction, I enter into the world of that piece of writing. Someone once described it as "falling into the hole" and you "emerge" when you finish. This night, I "fell into the hole" through an article about people of faith who are doing their best to live out their deepest convictions in the decaying and dying city of Detroit. They are determined not to abandon it, nor the people who live there. I was deeply moved by different ways they are working within their communities, struggling to revive what was once a bustling, vibrant urban space, where now there are some 90,000 vacant or abandoned lots and homes. As I read this article, I cried at the devastation, and marveled at the strength of the people who have committed themselves to helping Detroit and their communities. And then I imagined myself there, opening a school, where kids would have the chance to learn through multiple ways, freed from the insidiousness of standardized tests that told them they were all failures; where we could plant urban gardens to grow food we could prepare and eat at our school; where they could apply what they learn in reading, writing and math to rich content learning that incorporates social studies, science, physical education, and the arts. I fell even deeper in the hole as I read another article about people in Guatemala working to help rural children there, in a place where over 70% of the children suffer from chronic malnutrition, and many die or are permanently affected by it. Along with addressing physical needs, a school has been established for those children who have been abandoned, abused, or orphaned, and where wealthy children and children of extreme poverty go to school together, in order to encourage a closing of the social gap. The tuition of the wealthiest helps the school be able to offer its services to the orphans for free. And so I dreamed some more, envisioning a school where parents and donors who were committed to social justice would help children from all socio-economic backgrounds come together at my school to work, learn, play and live together in the heart of Detroit, or another urban center desperately in need of renewal.
This imagining has shades of the rhetoric of Fate, as explained last week, when they shared how some people who play the lottery take pleasure as they playfully imagine what they would do if they won. I play this, even though I don't play the lottery. I think about what I would do if I won some crazy super-Lotto amount, how I would pay some family members' student loans, or buy that one person a car so they don't have to drive the semi-death trap they do, and yes, how I would open a school to give students who basically have no chance, an opportunity. But this play is more than the rhetoric of fate for me. It is also the rhetoric of the imaginary. Imaginative play and imagination is a huge part of who I am, and has been since I was very young. It also intersects with the rhetoric of self, as I use it to imagine the possibilities for my future. Vandenburg says that the essence of being human is that we optimistically project our possibilities into the future: "Play is an instance of projecting one's future and the thrill is derived from exploring possibilities" (p. 187). The kind of play I am describing here is not just about pretend; it's about toying with the possibilities in a real future.
Overlapping and incorporating bits of the rhetorics of fate, imaginary, and self muddies each one, as well as the concept of play overall. I can play with the idea of future realities for hours; more than once I have drawn up basic plans for this imaginary-yet-possible-future school. What does this mean about play and my appropriation of the parts I like from various rhetorics, even as I disregard other parts? What I think it says once again, is that play is deeply complex, ambiguous, and highly individualized. I think that for some of us, it's in our nature to try to quantify it, when the reality is that it's like water poured from a glass, that flows all over the table and has no easily defined shape.
To finish: I too, hold deep convictions about social justice, about caring for others. In entering into the lives of the people in these articles, I am once again reminded of how important those ideas are to me. There is a verse in the Old Testament of the Bible that says, "He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly[a] with your God." (Micah 6:8) And in the intersections of play and life and possibility and belief and imagination, this week I pondered how I could do this, whether in Detroit, Michigan or in Mishawaka, Indiana, or Guatemala. As I said, sometimes detours are good.
When I read, even in the case of a lot of non-fiction, I enter into the world of that piece of writing. Someone once described it as "falling into the hole" and you "emerge" when you finish. This night, I "fell into the hole" through an article about people of faith who are doing their best to live out their deepest convictions in the decaying and dying city of Detroit. They are determined not to abandon it, nor the people who live there. I was deeply moved by different ways they are working within their communities, struggling to revive what was once a bustling, vibrant urban space, where now there are some 90,000 vacant or abandoned lots and homes. As I read this article, I cried at the devastation, and marveled at the strength of the people who have committed themselves to helping Detroit and their communities. And then I imagined myself there, opening a school, where kids would have the chance to learn through multiple ways, freed from the insidiousness of standardized tests that told them they were all failures; where we could plant urban gardens to grow food we could prepare and eat at our school; where they could apply what they learn in reading, writing and math to rich content learning that incorporates social studies, science, physical education, and the arts. I fell even deeper in the hole as I read another article about people in Guatemala working to help rural children there, in a place where over 70% of the children suffer from chronic malnutrition, and many die or are permanently affected by it. Along with addressing physical needs, a school has been established for those children who have been abandoned, abused, or orphaned, and where wealthy children and children of extreme poverty go to school together, in order to encourage a closing of the social gap. The tuition of the wealthiest helps the school be able to offer its services to the orphans for free. And so I dreamed some more, envisioning a school where parents and donors who were committed to social justice would help children from all socio-economic backgrounds come together at my school to work, learn, play and live together in the heart of Detroit, or another urban center desperately in need of renewal.
This imagining has shades of the rhetoric of Fate, as explained last week, when they shared how some people who play the lottery take pleasure as they playfully imagine what they would do if they won. I play this, even though I don't play the lottery. I think about what I would do if I won some crazy super-Lotto amount, how I would pay some family members' student loans, or buy that one person a car so they don't have to drive the semi-death trap they do, and yes, how I would open a school to give students who basically have no chance, an opportunity. But this play is more than the rhetoric of fate for me. It is also the rhetoric of the imaginary. Imaginative play and imagination is a huge part of who I am, and has been since I was very young. It also intersects with the rhetoric of self, as I use it to imagine the possibilities for my future. Vandenburg says that the essence of being human is that we optimistically project our possibilities into the future: "Play is an instance of projecting one's future and the thrill is derived from exploring possibilities" (p. 187). The kind of play I am describing here is not just about pretend; it's about toying with the possibilities in a real future.
Overlapping and incorporating bits of the rhetorics of fate, imaginary, and self muddies each one, as well as the concept of play overall. I can play with the idea of future realities for hours; more than once I have drawn up basic plans for this imaginary-yet-possible-future school. What does this mean about play and my appropriation of the parts I like from various rhetorics, even as I disregard other parts? What I think it says once again, is that play is deeply complex, ambiguous, and highly individualized. I think that for some of us, it's in our nature to try to quantify it, when the reality is that it's like water poured from a glass, that flows all over the table and has no easily defined shape.
To finish: I too, hold deep convictions about social justice, about caring for others. In entering into the lives of the people in these articles, I am once again reminded of how important those ideas are to me. There is a verse in the Old Testament of the Bible that says, "He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly[a] with your God." (Micah 6:8) And in the intersections of play and life and possibility and belief and imagination, this week I pondered how I could do this, whether in Detroit, Michigan or in Mishawaka, Indiana, or Guatemala. As I said, sometimes detours are good.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
To Knit or not to Knit? That is the Puzzle
I am one of those people that, when I take a personality test, have a tendency to rank highest on the two most completely opposite things. I have often said that one part of me drives the other part crazy! So, I am a weird mixture of both extrovert and introvert. The last two blog posts have been all about me and collective play, being part of social groups. In class, I shared how I love to host and be part of theme parties.This is the extrovert in me. I enjoy time with people and get energy from being with interesting people I trust, and with whom I can talk, laugh, and play. On the other hand, I am not like most extroverts who hate being alone, who don't like silence or times of stillness. I not only like solitude and stillness, I need them to rest, refill, rejuvenate and restore. I have to have that time to myself just as much as I have to have time with people. I like to read and write creatively, think about and plan travel adventures, do paper crafting, or occasionally be out in nature on my own. This is the introvert in me. My mom used to say I would come home from a semester away at school, go to my bedroom and pretty much stay there for two weeks, alone, then come out re-energized and ready to go again. So, while I would primarily type myself as an extrovert, I think it's important to our understanding of play to avoid a dichotomous view of extroverted and introverted, or of collective players and solitary players, because it seems to me that people are a unique and complex mix of both along a spectrum, not an either/or.
Where I feel like I've particularly lost some of myself as a player is in my solitary play time. When I'm alone, that's when I feel like I need to be getting to work on something, because there's always something to be working on. I rarely read for pleasure any more, and I miss that terribly, but I know that when I start a book, I better have time to read the whole thing, because I'm not likely to put it down....so I just don't start one. : ( With my paper crafting, I need to have the space to leave it out so I can work on it a bit at a time, but I don't have that space at present. By the time I get it all out and put it all away, it's more time than I can afford, and it's too much tidying for me. Yet, after last semester, when I pretty much eliminated all play and most rest, I realized the importance of finding solitary, enjoyable activities which need the minimum amount of space and equipment that I can play at for short amounts of time in order to clear my brain, relax, reduce stress, and rejuvenate. That's when I decided I would learn to knit- or more accurately, "re-learn", as someone had taught me the first time some 25-30 years ago.
I chose knitting because I love fibers, the act of creation, the simplicity of materials and minimal expense to begin. It is also easy to transport, to do in small places or when you only have a few minutes. One of my friends who knits agreed to come over yesterday and teach me the basics to get started. Excitedly, I went to the fibre arts store downtown to buy needles and yarn. The owner there is fantastic and super helpful. When I explained I was a beginner, she talked with me about which needles would be best for starting, and explained the differences in yarns that would be easiest to work with as a novice. I walked out with a lovely, sleek pair of size 7 bamboo needles, and some warm yellow yarn-my mom's favorite color- with which to practice, as it would show my stitches clearly. My friend came over and we began by looking for the beginning thread in the skein of yarn I had bought.....and that's as far as we got.
See, what happened is that we could NOT find the beginning of the yarn! You usually reach into the center of the skein, and there it is. She reached in....nope. I reached in....nope. After several reachings, the skein was turning into Boston Turnpike on a holiday weekend. We finally found the beginning of the yarn, but by this time, the skein was a tangled mass of yellowness on my living room floor, and we both had meetings to get to. At first, my inner rigid self thought, "Now what?! I didn't play like I planned! What am I going to do? What will I play at instead?" yada, yada, yada. But then, I remembered what my knitting friend said about how winding yarn, and even the process of having to unsnarl a bit could be rather therapeutic. So I decided to go for it....and instead of playing at knitting, I found myself doing a puzzle. As I followed the yellow trail through the twisted yarn pile, it was kinda fun to figure out my way through the maze, and the very tidy and organized part of me took great satisfaction in establishing order out of the chaos, and I actually had to make myself quit working at the puzzle to finish other things!
So what did I learn from play plans gone awry? First of all, regardless of the fact that I never did get to the knitting part, I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and how it connected to Sutton-Smith's chapter on the rhetoric of self, and how play in our postmodern, consumerist world is about freedom, self-expression, conspicuous playfulness, internal motivation, and individual experience. For us in the modern western world, things like knitting, crocheting, or fishing are now primarily hobbies-forms of play or recreation-with the exception of a small minority of people, such as commercial fishermen, or artisan knitters. The tools of these historical trades have become "toys" for many of us, important to our play, but not to our survival, which we can choose to use as forms of expression of our subjective selves-or not. Many of us have disposable income and disposable "time" to spend on differing pursuits solely to please ourselves, and spend enormous amounts doing so. These become extensions of self, rather than necessities to feed and clothe a community. What was historically considered work and still is in many parts of the world is play for those of us who can afford it. Our wealth allows us access to toys, places and times for our individualistic, consumeristic play that others may not have. As Sutton-Smith says of the Self rhetoric: "Its hegemony is the superiority of those who have access to the kinds of places...where such experiences are available" (p. 199). And so I wonder if the rhetoric of Self is also primarily connected to those of us who can "afford" it, that is, if it is primarily culturally and historically situated in our postmodern consumerist culture . This idea connects to the Oriard quote in the chapter, which states that there has been a "widely acknowledged shift in America from work-centered culture to one that has increasingly privileged the values of play...the desire to play and transform work into a 'game' has increased dramatically over the past century and a half" (pp.179, 180).
Beyond these more philosophical musings, I also learned to "play with what ya got". I went from a plan to knit to playing with a maze puzzle. "Working" to unsnarl that yarn once again called into question what is play, how we make something play, if work can become play, if we can play while we work, and who decides what is play- shades of the questions we are asking in class which challenge a binary between work and play.
Finally, as I type this, it occurs to me that that tangled mass of fibre slowly becoming a ball of yarn is a metaphor for what we are doing in class- untangling ideas of play, weaving in and out of snarls in thinking, slowly making some semblance of order out of chaos....until the ball of ideas falls and rolls across the floor of our minds, only to be reconsidered, rewound....containing multiple possibilities for what is eventually "knitted" together. It will be interesting to see what finally emerges from the tangles...
Where I feel like I've particularly lost some of myself as a player is in my solitary play time. When I'm alone, that's when I feel like I need to be getting to work on something, because there's always something to be working on. I rarely read for pleasure any more, and I miss that terribly, but I know that when I start a book, I better have time to read the whole thing, because I'm not likely to put it down....so I just don't start one. : ( With my paper crafting, I need to have the space to leave it out so I can work on it a bit at a time, but I don't have that space at present. By the time I get it all out and put it all away, it's more time than I can afford, and it's too much tidying for me. Yet, after last semester, when I pretty much eliminated all play and most rest, I realized the importance of finding solitary, enjoyable activities which need the minimum amount of space and equipment that I can play at for short amounts of time in order to clear my brain, relax, reduce stress, and rejuvenate. That's when I decided I would learn to knit- or more accurately, "re-learn", as someone had taught me the first time some 25-30 years ago.
I chose knitting because I love fibers, the act of creation, the simplicity of materials and minimal expense to begin. It is also easy to transport, to do in small places or when you only have a few minutes. One of my friends who knits agreed to come over yesterday and teach me the basics to get started. Excitedly, I went to the fibre arts store downtown to buy needles and yarn. The owner there is fantastic and super helpful. When I explained I was a beginner, she talked with me about which needles would be best for starting, and explained the differences in yarns that would be easiest to work with as a novice. I walked out with a lovely, sleek pair of size 7 bamboo needles, and some warm yellow yarn-my mom's favorite color- with which to practice, as it would show my stitches clearly. My friend came over and we began by looking for the beginning thread in the skein of yarn I had bought.....and that's as far as we got.
See, what happened is that we could NOT find the beginning of the yarn! You usually reach into the center of the skein, and there it is. She reached in....nope. I reached in....nope. After several reachings, the skein was turning into Boston Turnpike on a holiday weekend. We finally found the beginning of the yarn, but by this time, the skein was a tangled mass of yellowness on my living room floor, and we both had meetings to get to. At first, my inner rigid self thought, "Now what?! I didn't play like I planned! What am I going to do? What will I play at instead?" yada, yada, yada. But then, I remembered what my knitting friend said about how winding yarn, and even the process of having to unsnarl a bit could be rather therapeutic. So I decided to go for it....and instead of playing at knitting, I found myself doing a puzzle. As I followed the yellow trail through the twisted yarn pile, it was kinda fun to figure out my way through the maze, and the very tidy and organized part of me took great satisfaction in establishing order out of the chaos, and I actually had to make myself quit working at the puzzle to finish other things!
So what did I learn from play plans gone awry? First of all, regardless of the fact that I never did get to the knitting part, I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and how it connected to Sutton-Smith's chapter on the rhetoric of self, and how play in our postmodern, consumerist world is about freedom, self-expression, conspicuous playfulness, internal motivation, and individual experience. For us in the modern western world, things like knitting, crocheting, or fishing are now primarily hobbies-forms of play or recreation-with the exception of a small minority of people, such as commercial fishermen, or artisan knitters. The tools of these historical trades have become "toys" for many of us, important to our play, but not to our survival, which we can choose to use as forms of expression of our subjective selves-or not. Many of us have disposable income and disposable "time" to spend on differing pursuits solely to please ourselves, and spend enormous amounts doing so. These become extensions of self, rather than necessities to feed and clothe a community. What was historically considered work and still is in many parts of the world is play for those of us who can afford it. Our wealth allows us access to toys, places and times for our individualistic, consumeristic play that others may not have. As Sutton-Smith says of the Self rhetoric: "Its hegemony is the superiority of those who have access to the kinds of places...where such experiences are available" (p. 199). And so I wonder if the rhetoric of Self is also primarily connected to those of us who can "afford" it, that is, if it is primarily culturally and historically situated in our postmodern consumerist culture . This idea connects to the Oriard quote in the chapter, which states that there has been a "widely acknowledged shift in America from work-centered culture to one that has increasingly privileged the values of play...the desire to play and transform work into a 'game' has increased dramatically over the past century and a half" (pp.179, 180).
Beyond these more philosophical musings, I also learned to "play with what ya got". I went from a plan to knit to playing with a maze puzzle. "Working" to unsnarl that yarn once again called into question what is play, how we make something play, if work can become play, if we can play while we work, and who decides what is play- shades of the questions we are asking in class which challenge a binary between work and play.
Finally, as I type this, it occurs to me that that tangled mass of fibre slowly becoming a ball of yarn is a metaphor for what we are doing in class- untangling ideas of play, weaving in and out of snarls in thinking, slowly making some semblance of order out of chaos....until the ball of ideas falls and rolls across the floor of our minds, only to be reconsidered, rewound....containing multiple possibilities for what is eventually "knitted" together. It will be interesting to see what finally emerges from the tangles...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)